PUTRAJAYA, March 5 – The National Employment Council (NEC) met today (3 March 2022) to discuss programs and initiatives that have been and will be undertaken by implementing agencies to create employment opportunities for Malaysian families.
Among the successes that have been achieved, in January 2022 alone, 42,166 people have found jobs and a total of 1,200 new jobs have been created. It reflects the improving state of the Malaysian economy with the reopening of various economic and social sectors. In fact, this success also proves that the JaminKerja Keluarga Malaysia (“JaminKerja”) initiative is on track to achieve the target of creating 600,000 jobs this year.
Recalling the success achieved in 2021, the Government in collaboration with various Ministries, implementing agencies and the private sector has successfully created 558,633 jobs. This achievement is 112% higher than the set target and the Government is confident that this success can be repeated with a higher target for 2022.
In addition, the Council also examines and discusses strategies to reduce dependence on foreign workers. The quota system and Multi-tier Levy (MTL) are steps that can be taken to address this issue and support from employers is also needed to offset the impact of post-pandemic labor shortages.
The Malaysian Family Work Guarantee Initiative has three (3) main components, namely the Job Guarantee Employment Incentive, Training and Skills Upgrading Program and the Malaysia Short Term Employment Program (MySTEP).
The Council agreed to target a total of 300,000 job placements under the Guaranteed Employment Incentive, 220,000 under the Training and Skills Enhancement Program, and 80,000 under MySTEP. As per the previous arrangement, the achievement of this target will be supported by five (5) Special Task Forces (STF) chaired by the Secretary General of the respective Ministries.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Human Resources has been instructed to formulate a specific strategy aimed at further increasing employment opportunities for youths. This measure is important because the unemployment rate in this group is at 80.3 percent.
The government also reiterated its stance on early exposure to Technical education and Vocational Training (TVET) to Form 1 students, to help students make choices based on their interests.
To this end, a comprehensive TVET promotion and rebranding campaign will be conducted to dispel the perception that TVET is a second class education. Instead, TVET will be empowered so that it becomes a career of choice like developed countries.
The Government will also improve and strengthen the employment ecosystem through the establishment of a one -stop Job Placement Center that will monitor the success of each job application. It is a complement to the MYFutureJobs platform that makes it easy for employers to offer jobs and at the same time helps job seekers to register and get interview dates.
The Government is confident that the NEC strategy can continue the momentum of the country’s economic recovery, increase job creation and reduce the unemployment rate. In addition, the Government takes seriously related issues such as the shortage of workers in certain sectors, equality of employment opportunities, social protection for workers and the issue of marketability of graduates.
